I think a lot of people who realize that the occupation is wrong also realize that the Palestinians have the right to resist it – to use violence against Israelis, even to kill Israelis, especially when Israel is showing zero willingness to end the occupation, which has been the case since the Netanyahu government took over (among other times in the past).

But people don’t want to say this, especially right after a terror attack like this last one that killed eight Israelis near Eilat. And there are lots of good reasons for this reticence, such as: You don’t want to further upset your own countrymen when they are grieving, you don’t want to say or write anything that could be picked up by Israel’s enemies and used as justification for killing more of us. (These are good reasons; fear of being called a traitor, for instance, is a bad reason.)

But I think it’s time to overcome this reticence, even at the cost of enflaming the already enflamed sensitivities of the Israeli public, because this unwillingness to say outright that Palestinians have the right to fight the occupation, especially now, inadvertently helps keep the occupation going.

... Whoever the Palestinians were who killed the eight Israelis near Eilat last week, however vile their ideology was, they were justified to attack. They had the same right to fight for their freedom as any other unfree nation in history ever had. And just like every harsh, unjust government in history bears the blame for the deaths of its own people at the hands of rebels, so Israel, which rules the Palestinians harshly and unjustly, is to blame for those eight Israeli deaths – as well as for every other Israeli death that occurred when this country was offering the Palestinians no other way to freedom.

Writing this is not treason. It is an attempt at patriotism.

Derfner, who no doubt would describe himself as liberal, cannot find a single ethical problem with Palestinian Arab terror. Like Mahmoud Abbas and every other Palestinian Arab leader, he merely says:

I also think Palestinian terrorism backfires, it turns people away from them and generates sympathy for Israel and the occupation, so I’m against terrorism on a practical level, too, but that’s besides the point.

As to his "logic" - this is it:

If those who oppose the occupation acknowledged publicly that it justifies Palestinian terrorism, then those who support the occupation would have to explain why it doesn’t. And that’s not easy for a nation that sanctifies the right to self-defense; a nation that elected Irgun leader Menachem Begin and Lehi leader Yitzhak Shamir as prime minister.

It isn't easy to distinguish between targeting civilians for death and regretting when civilians die while trying to defend your people? It isn't easy to find that all deliberate killing of peaceful civilians is morally bankrupt - including those done by The Stern Gang in the 1940s?

Moreover - does Derfner, in his wildest dreams, believe that attacking two couples on vacation in Eilat can be construed as self-defense?

This is a breathtakingly sick article, one that is incitement to terrorism. It shows that it is now fashionable among some leftists to twist the language of "rights" into justifying horrors.

And you can be sure that the more "mainstream" Leftists, those who claim to be against all attacks on civilians, will not unequivocally condemn this example of how the murder of Israeli Jews is now considered necessary and just among some of their own.

Hasbys!

Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون

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